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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E310]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECOGNIZING RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN'S ARTICLE
______
HON. ELAINE G. LURIA
of virginia
in the house of representatives
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Mrs. LURIA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Rabbi Israel
Zoberman and include in the Record this article, Learning a Shared
History of Sorrow:
On February 22, 2019, George Washington's birthday, during
Black History Month, I was privileged to travel to the
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and
Culture, close to the Washington Monument on the inspiring
National Mall of our nation's capital. I was in good company
for the long-awaited tour organized by the Virginia Beach
Human Rights Commission. The 44 passengers on the bus
included members of the Commission, of which I am a grateful
member, representation of the Virginia Beach City Council and
the Mayor's office along with the Virginia Beach Police
Department, students and staff of the Virginia Beach City
Public Schools as well as leaders of the African American
Culture Center of Virginia Beach. What an impressive array of
civic commitment!
As a family member of the Holocaust's surviving remnant of
European Jewry. I knew ahead of the searing visit of the
tragic bond between the African American experience and the
destruction of European Jewry, of the binding bond among all
affected by infectious racial, religious, ethnic, national
and gender hatred seeking to demean, dehumanize and demonize
the `other'. There is an unmistakable thread connecting the
2015 murder of 9 Black members at Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Charleston S.C., with the gunning down of
11 Jewish worshippers at a Sabbath service in Pittsburg's
Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018; between the historical
lynchings of Blacks and the 2017 White Supremacist mayhem in
Charlottesville, Virginia, resulting in a murder, with the
dreaded shouts of ``Jews will not replace us!'' still ringing
in our ears. Vitriolic anti-Semitism is precipitously on the
rise in the United States and Europe.
The imposing structure of the African American Museum
stands within sight of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. I
recalled my first visit there and the subsequent ones, when I
felt the overcoming sense of uncontrollable loss. It was the
same sensation of being assaulted to the core of my humanity
that I experienced traveling the challenging halls of the
African American Museum. Yet, I emerged from both encounters
with greater resolve to mend the world, Tikkun Olam, turning
blemishes into blessings. Who can remain untouched gazing at
the casket of brutally murdered 14-year-old Emmett Till and
the photo of his agonizing mother, the only exhibit we are
forbidden to photograph that we should focus uninterruptedly?
We were guided by an incredible docent telling the story of
proud Africans forcibly and so cruelly separated from their
rich roots and brought to America--those who made it through
the terrifying Middle Passage--and brought here to be
violated of all that is sacred. Both they as slaves and
Europe's Jews were deemed sub-human. The former ones by
colonial powers and a new America promising to advance
liberty's cause, and the latter ones by a Germany regarded
the world's most civilized nation. The vital Jewish and
African American partnership during the Civil Rights Movement
of the 1960s, needs to be revitalized in the context of a
wider coalition to move America forward.
I wish that both museums could be connected by a bridge or
a tunnel to visualize their inseparable bond. Recently heroic
French Father Patrick Desbois had a memorable presentation in
Virginia Beach. He is renowned for documenting unknown Nazi
massacres with local collaboration in occupied lands during
WWII along with ISIS's mass crimes in Iraq. He shares a
stunning statement in his unsettling book, In Broad Daylight,
that applies as well to the inhumane treatment of African
Americans, ``I feel a mounting disgust for our species. The
sort of nausea that makes you want to quit the human race.''
But we dare not quit the human race. Great strides have taken
place though progress is an arduous work in the making. The
large number of visitors at the museum, particularly the many
students, is a hopeful sign. We dare not despair of past and
present pain, for that only serves the hateful aggressor,
while indifference, as Eli Wiesel taught us, only enables
evildoers to succeed.
We need better tools to fight the scourge and resurgence of
all forms of hatred, bigotry and discrimination. Democracies
are at risk of backsliding, as was the case in Germany, and
require eternal vigilance.
A precious teachable window is open to us following trying
circumstances, as we celebrate this year the 400th
Anniversary of Virginia with its dark shadows and shining
lights. Let us pledge, one diverse but united family, to rise
together higher and higher.
____________________